Sunday, 22 January 2012

Quiggly and Jean's House

Zap's been doing some work for some LOVELY people called Quiggly and Jean (as in the French John). They and their kids are just fantastic people. They said I could come along and hang about when Zap was working, so I did, and it is such a beautiful place they have. They have a horse, a dog, and loads of chickens that lay loads of delicious eggs everyday, a pool - Emma heaven!

Zappa, Dolphin the dog and Baxter (the cutest kid I have ever met, ever ever)

The other day they said they were going away for a week and a bit, and could we house sit on the weekends?! So here we are.

The view

Possum the horse and Zappa

Blossom meets a chicken...

...that's just laid an egg.

Are we just the luckiest people alive or what?!

Oo look and we found a funky little frog:

Veterinary Clinical Case:
I was called over the other day to give a private veterinary consultation regarding a young chicken who could not move her legs very well. On physical examination the feet were the worst affected, being completely paralysed, the legs were paraplegic, the wings could move almost normally and the head and neck were normal. The bird was afebrile and showed no other obvious abnormalities. Upon taking a history I learnt that it had been born normal and developed this condition after the death of its mother.

I pondered and consulted my notes, and my memory which told me basically if a chicken is ill you will know because it and a percentage of the other 40,000 birds in the same barn will have died suddenly. If this is not the case and they haven't died yet, you cull the affected ones and observe strict biosecurity measures. Not a lot of remedial medicine for poultry is taught to vet students, apart from if something is wrong you stick a load of antibiotics in the flock's water.

I was flicking through a dog and cat toxicology lecture by a very Italian Italian guy who spent the first 15 minutes of the lecture telling us how to make proper pasta sauce and why good pasta and sex is so important to have a good life; when I realised that tick paralysis, endemic in small amimals in Australia, fitted the clinical signs. According to google birds can get it too (the Italian didn't tell us that), so I presented that as my most likely diagnosis, and the kids found 3 ticks on the bird which we removed.

Prognosis is guarded as the chicken's paralysis has been progressing for a few days already, but hopefully it will reverse and be miraculously cured. Wouldn't THAT be a boost. I've always wanted to cure something.